Results 14,541-14,560 of 32,643 for speaker:Paschal Donohoe

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Local Property Tax Review: Discussion (11 Jun 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: My key point in my consideration of this issue is that when I looked at the different options I would have considered, the committee independently reached the same view on them, namely, that we either maintain a national rate or that we allow local authorities to deliver the same yield by county but that they have the ability to vary the rate. It became obvious to me that while it was...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Local Property Tax Review: Discussion (11 Jun 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: That is correct. My objective would be to maintain it on a "no policy change" basis until we get to the point at which legislation will be needed to renew this tax in its entirety.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Local Property Tax Review: Discussion (11 Jun 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: It will be in 2021.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Local Property Tax Review: Discussion (11 Jun 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: No. To deal with the first part of the Deputy's question, as we bring existing households into the LPT net, which we will need to do, the revenue these properties will contribute initially will be a relatively small part of the new LPT yield. In respect of why there is such a variation, even in scenario 2 as the Deputy has identified, there are two reasons. The first is that there has been...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Local Property Tax Review: Discussion (11 Jun 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: It is because of the price variation within each local authority area.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Local Property Tax Review: Discussion (11 Jun 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: I am happy to supply the model underlying the figures to the committee.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Local Property Tax Review: Discussion (11 Jun 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: Yes, it is because of how uneven the price development is. We have based all our calculations on the figures we collected from the Revenue Commissioners. This is the yield those data deliver. As the discussion develops, I can ask my officials to come in and comment on the numbers. What I have set out is what our model of property prices across the country has yielded.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Local Property Tax Review: Discussion (11 Jun 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: Of course.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Local Property Tax Review: Discussion (11 Jun 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: I take a different view. A tax code should have the ability to tax assets appropriately. The LPT has got the balance right between having a broad definition of what wealth is and being able to tax it in a progressive way. The more valuable one's home, the higher one's payment. I would have hoped to see that principle of progressivity supported by the Deputy. Ireland is one of the few...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Local Property Tax Review: Discussion (11 Jun 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: I do not agree that my position on this introduces a tension, but I accept that it introduces a difficulty in terms of how we go about the revaluation process. It is a difficulty we must overcome because ensuring that the first revaluation of the LPT is successful offers the opportunity for the tax to make more of a contribution to the delivery of public services into the future. If that...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Local Property Tax Review: Discussion (11 Jun 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: The reason it is not possible to extend the LPT now to new homes that are being built, in the absence of a revaluation for all, is that we would have to tax properties that have just been built on the basis of the 2013 valuation. Then we would be in the situation of taxing one property that existed in 2013 on that valuation and of finding a way to infer the taxable value of a new property to...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Local Property Tax Review: Discussion (11 Jun 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: I meant this "we" over here, for the purpose of clarification. I was not extending it any further. Perhaps this illustrates the difficulty.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Local Property Tax Review: Discussion (11 Jun 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: In response to the Deputy's points about my not making decisions, for those he has pointed to that I have not made, I would point to the ones I have made, principally the value added tax, VAT, in the hospitality and services sector, the change in the betting levy and the stamp duty on commercial property. He is correct to say that there are some changes I have not made but there are others...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Local Property Tax Review: Discussion (11 Jun 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: I do not see that happening in the short or medium term.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Local Property Tax Review: Discussion (11 Jun 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: Yes. My key consideration in all of this, which is why I made the decision that I did, is that if anybody faces an increase it should be modest and affordable.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Local Property Tax Review: Discussion (11 Jun 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: I have explained that I see that coming about as a result of new homes coming into the local property tax, LPT, base as they are built.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Local Property Tax Review: Discussion (11 Jun 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: We considered it but we did not find a way of doing it that would be fair to all. It goes back to the point I made to Deputy Breathnach. In order to have a taxable liability we need a way of pricing the asset. We would then face the challenge of trying to assign a market value at 2013 levels to properties that have just been built. We were not able to come up with a way of doing that...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Local Property Tax Review: Discussion (11 Jun 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: The person who pays the LPT is the property owner. The Deputy does not need me to tell him that. I would be careful about introducing LPT relief for landlords for precisely the reason he has identified. It is very difficult to make a tax policy measure available on the basis of scale, so that a landlord below a certain size can have it and one above that size cannot. This is one of the...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Local Property Tax Review: Discussion (11 Jun 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: I take the Deputy's point. We need to look at how to strengthen the link between the local property tax somebody pays and the local services he or she receives. That is a fair point. To make the Deputy aware I will refer to how the LPT is currently allocated. Of the approximately €500 million raised each year, approximately €400 million is recycled back to local authorities...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Local Property Tax Review: Discussion (11 Jun 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: The Deputy argued that we need to give consideration to ability to pay in terms of the future LPT. I can understand the attraction of that point and why the Deputy feels that way. Legislating for that and changing the LPT to do that would have massive consequences in terms of what this tax would look like in the future and the revenue it could raise. This is one of the issues we need to be...